This is how Google is killing the Web | Hacker News Reader

This is how Google is killing the Web

medium.com

8 pointsshacharz7 comments

This article misses that the browser version of installing an app on a computer is bookmarking a web page in your browser. With cloud syncing I can even take my bookmarks with me across different computers.

In their example, if I came across a useful website called 'Stayful' it would be bookmarked and available for quick access the next time I'm planning a holiday.

Chances are you have more than 50 bookmarks. Mainstream users have a hard time finding what they saved on their bookmarks. Except for being synced on the cloud. We are still confined to the same bookmark experience we had 20 years ago.

Most modern browsers will autofill URLs from your bookmarks now. You don't have to navigate a bunch of menus anymore.

I primarily save bookmarks so that they come up at the top of my autofill list. Most of them are a couple of keystrokes away.

I've got several hundred bookmarks, but they're certainly better sorted than the apps on my phone. I've got them in subfolders by type, and as another poster noted the address bar autofills from the bookmarks so it takes me no time at all to find any of my bookmarked pages.

In contrast I can only sort the apps on my phone on to one of several pages, and to find one I have to flick through them looking for a particular icon. I don't even get customized text descriptions, let alone subfolders, customized icons...

The obvious truth (axiom in mathematics) in the article is Google search is hiding the applications by showing only the search box and not showing lot of icons like windows desktop or smartphone. I argue it is not true, I assume the following is obvious

1. Windows desktop or smartphone usually show 50-100 application 2. Google search has to show billions of web pages

therefore I argue that it is simple impossible for Google to show billion of pages like Windows desktop and smartphone. Hence Google show the search box instead of icons.

Don't think the problem is with the amount of indexed pages. Just the way we need to access what we already know and use. Chrome provides us with the top 8 most frequent sites. This keeps us going again and again to the same sites. Harder to make a habit around a new site.

Bunch of FUD, especially considering Chrome Apps that do the same thing as desktop apps. Google isn't killing the web; at the very least not like this.

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